Enjoying fruit and beauty
The view from a land we did nothing to deserve
As I reflected on the past couple of years in the history of our family, I kept returning to the promises God made to Israel during their exodus, to lead them to houses they did not build and trees they did not plant.
~Abigail Mullins, aka often the reason the wheels don’t fly right off of this crazy train.
When we moved into our new home just over a year ago, the land on which the house sits was overgrown, fairly choked with weeds and vines and other scrubby things I could not begin to identify. The small ridge behind the house was overrun with juvenile trees, growing wild among their taller siblings, many with trunks no thicker than a pencil. By the time we took possession, the greenery was beginning to thin as the fall weather was also beginning its move into the neighborhood, so we knew we weren’t seeing the full extent of the vegetation cover, and would have to wait until spring to get the full effect.
We bought the home because we saw the potential for our family there, a future, at a price we could (kind of) afford. But only with a lot of work.
Not to be too “on the nose,” but there was a clear parallel between the state of the property and that of our lives at the time. Several months earlier, due to a Big T Trauma, we had been forced to move from a home we loved - one in which we had raised our kids and laid down roots in our community - and we had been struggling to find solid ground again. To be sure, we were much more fortunate than most in a similar situation, surrounded by friends and family who helped us hobble through the worst of the early period of shock and mourning.
In any case, here we stood, quite literally by the grace of God, on a new-to-us piece of land, facing a revised and evolving future.
My wife is better at seeing the possibilities in material spaces that I am. Much better. So to her goes the credit for visiting the home and land for the first time and knowing that this was where we needed to put down new roots. In fact, she called me soon after her first tour of the home and told me that this was it, and that we should really make an offer, and soon. I knew based on her tone of urgency that I needed to see it, and sooner rather than later. I also knew with a practiced certainty that is she were all in, WE were all in.
Me seeing the home before we made an offer was a formality.
I finally saw it. And I saw IT. The home and the possibility. Mostly it was my wife’s enthusiasm. But I liked the relative wildness of the surrounding property, along with the immediate livability of the house itself. With some renovations to add rooms, and some hacking away at the most egregiously eager plants, we could move it pretty quickly.
Yet we were promised years of tinkering and chopping and planting on a heretofore wildening ground. Which, for reasons I cannot fully explain, we wanted.
There’s a multi-decade event that the Jewish people experienced centuries ago where God led them from a place of brutal captivity in a land that wasn’t theirs to a fertile place of their own. It was a consequence of disobedience, yes. But it was also a time of testing and of preparation. When God told them where all this was ultimately leading, when he tried to prepare them in the hard journey for the eventual destination, he let them know that once they arrived in the new land, they would not find a barren, empty landscape. They would instead discover a land filled with wells they did not dig, fruit trees and grapes they did not plant, homes they did not build. (Deut. 6).
It would be grossly grandiose and misleading to claim an understanding of what the Israelis had been through during that time (and since, quite frankly). I don’t claim a firsthand solidarity with them, and know that a few years of fallout from trauma does not equate decades of slavery followed by nearly a half-century of brutal, homeless wandering.
But, I believe the same God who led them out of day-to-day life in the harsh, arid desert into a lush landscape leads us as well.
I believe God took a “bottom falls out of our world” moment and reestablished us on firm ground.
He took us not directly out of the desert but through it, growing and shaping and sharpening us.
He gave us a healthy, vibrant community, refined to those who became “our people”.
He gave us means to survive, a spiritual toolbox with which to strengthen ourselves and hearten others temporarily lost in the weeds.
As has become abundantly clear, the folks who built and owned our home in the decades before us, had a love for all things horticulture. After our first winter in the home, as the ground began to thaw, and as we began to carefully clear away some under- and overgrowth, we were thrilled with what emerged. Stone-ringed garden areas with decorative markers. Plant support stakes originally invisible among the weeds. Incredible, intentionally placed flowers where dead things and scrubby grass were weeks earlier dominant. Fruit from previously sick-looking vines and ashy trees. Leaves and nuts of various types, as of today being shed again as another winter closes in.
Throughout this year, we have parked next to recently excavated grape arbors. My wife has happily wielded an app that helps her identify the plants and weeds and flowers and trees, and lets her know their overall health. We have watched the hummingbirds who have found our feeders, and have laughed at my granddaughter chasing the cat and the dog and the young chickens around the yard. I have cleared a treelined path across the back of the property, a small trail that is no longer than a tenth of a mile but that makes me feel for a few moments like I am in a wilder part of the world, before emerging on the other side of the house behind the chicken coop.
We may have cleared some brush and pruned some trees. We may have restrung the grapes and carefully mown through the undergrowth. We may have piled and burned sticks and cut back some invading vines. We may have started to leave our own mark by planting new vegetables and flowers.
But we are living a life we do not deserve, enjoying fruit and beauty from a view we really did nothing to earn.
The pruning God started in us continues, as he lovingly clears away all that is choking out what he has made us to be. But we breath clearer and grow with less restriction now.
It’s still very hard sometimes. But, man does he do beautiful work.
Thanks as always for taking time to read this! Would love to hear from you. If you think someone else might enjoy these regular occasional writings, please feel free to forward this email along!
Beautifully shared, Phil. And the message is a strong one. A much-needed reminder for me. Thank you, and may you and yours be blessed abundantly. ~Ed.
Lovely writing and pictures. I felt there in spirit.